New member looking at first purchase

Hello,Looking at purchasing my first pantera, found it locally modded, 72 wide body kit (glass),"NASCAR" engine,"nascar" brakes, needs paint but it's still nice.180 degree headers ceramic coated, Yates heads, yates intake 1150 street demon carb.Original interior, nice glass, upgraded radiator, front mounted condenser, sanden ac compressor, cogged drive belt water pump/alt/ac comp, whale tail wing, upgrade headlights and fuse panel, billet 18X14 rear rims 18X11 front new tires, car is nice was built probably 10-12 years ago, running driver but needs love.How concerned should I be about rust?I know it has some and they will, found some angle iron welded to the rear suspention area and the pass door lower alignment lug is missing and the cup it goes into, but there is a rust hole in that spot.It looks like it's been treated and painted, rockers window frame all look good.Undercarriage looks like what I would expect for a 40+ year old car, I'm a mechanic by trade, Ac work electrice and mechanical don't scare me, but rust? Any pointers would be great. Owner is straight up with me, he has let me look evreyware, and I trust him. I haven't gotten it on a lift but have looked as much as I can under and in the wheel wells.I just don't know enough.Thanks.

Ace; Hate to use my vehicle as an example, but go to Specific Car Photo Forum and go to "3639 Restoration Progress" and you will see those areas that are subject to rust and the process to address those areas. Photos of what others are doing in the restoration process are also in the same section, which will give you an idea of places to look for rust.Also, in the section in which you posted, look at Sticky #2 for a number of items when purchasing. As the previous post states, the angle iron welded to the inner fender support is an indication the owner was attempting a "band-aide" fix, which is in the area of rust. There are a number of inner panels (rocker panels, inside the frame and support tubing) that are hidden rust areas. Good luck in your evaluation. Welcome to the forum and the assistance it provides.

Welcome aboard Ace. Glad you're asking questions now, before pulling the trigger. Know that these cars rust from the inside out! I thought that was an absurd statement when I first started looking, until I learned more. The Pantera has a monocoque chassis with holes in various places - some visible in the engine compartment. These holes allow water to enter the chassis and frame rails where it sits and starts rust. Check out my link below for "How to inspect a Pantera." I've looked at a car which I was able to literally drive my bare finger through the rusty chassis at the bottom of the rear suspension. The key is to know what you're getting into. It can be tempting to look at an area of rust and think it's not too bad and that you can fix it, but remember, where there's smoke, there's fire. If one area which you can easily inspect has problematic rust, there's a good chance that other areas which are not easily inspected (or repaired) are infected with the same issue. Just know what you're getting into before you get into it.

Hi guys,Ya when I first looked at her I thought she was nice needed work but solid.I wanted a car I could enjoy without having to do a lot to.Then the more I looked on line and read story's I figured I'd better go have another look and really give it the once over.I'm not afraid of having to work on her but don't want something that's gonna need major repair to be solid.Those iron pieces are on both sides left and right, I couldent find any other areas but I'm sure there are. Last 4 of vin are 4094Thanks

There's also a lot of contamination under the paint like it wasn't prepped well, and the front flares have cracked the paint at the point where they were bonded to the body. Lots of paint cracks and crows feet around corners. It does look nice but when you get close you can see its needs paint.

I'd be very leery at this point. Sound like she's been driven hard and put up wet a few times. With such a small number of Panteras in Hawaii I'm sure the car is well known. I believe there are several Pantera owners on the island. Try to get them to assess the car. They already know the pitfalls. Since you're not really looking for a project I think this may not be one for you.

Lol but it's like like high way pronounced the way you spelled it.Yes this car is known it's got a ton of upgrades, comes with original engine as well as the SVO/Yates engine.And 2 other sets of wheels.And the other type of headers.Not many in hawaii, I'm torn between loving the looks and knowing there's issues.

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Looks good. I vote that you buy it and fix it.I'm sure I'll get some flack, but if you want to know how much the chassis is weakened, if the owner will consent you can jack up one corner of the car and see how the doors fit/close. Be aware, you may cause more cracking at the flares, etc.Good Luck!

That's what I'm leaning towards,It's just spending this kind of $ for something that will need more work is a tuff pill to swallow. I was surprised to see that at least sitting there the doors don't sag at all and only the front flares have cracked, neither the running boards or read flares have cracked. But I wasn't happy with the way the inner fender and cut original fender were just left, not even painted or tidied up, is that the way it's supposed to be? But the value and rarity are going up so if not now maybe never.

I use a free tool called Irfanview to batch-resize pictures for upload to this (and other) websites.http://www.irfanview.com/

Makes it easy to select all the pictures in a folder and do a batch resizing (640x480 for example) and save in a new folder. And if a picture is still over 200kb, you can 'save as' and lower the quality to get the size down.

Also keep in mind that you're really not hung out there at the edge of the world in Maui. Besides this forum and the other one at POCA.com, there are several Pantera owners on Maui and maybe 15 collectively on all the islands. My youngest son lives in Puukolani.

I need to address the leaking right cover on the ZF,And the bolts were to long keeping the valve cover from being torqued properly.

Anybody have an opinion on the headers? Do they need support at the mufflers? They just kinda "hang" there.And if you grab ahold of them you can get quite a bit a movement out of them, while they flex.

Yes, they most certainly need to be supported at the mufflers. If they are currently not so supported someone has removed the factory supports, likely you do not have stock Ansa mufflers anymore. Correct?

Have you looked to see if the stock, attached to the chassis, muffler support brackets are still in place?

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